Page 8 of Write Me For You
I tapped my head. “He’s totally weird. Pretty sure too many baseballs have hit his head.” An empty water bottle hit the back of mine.
“I heard that!” Chris said, the obvious culprit of the bottle throw.
I decided to ignore him again. “Come on, Junebug,” I said and opened the rec room door, gesturing for her to join me. “I’ll walk you back to your suite.”
“You know where it is?” she asked.
“I do.” A shiver ran down my back as we walked down the maze of hallways, just the two of us. It felt like a sudden flash of nerves.
Strange.
I threw my football between my hands to settle myself as June asked, “Are your parents staying in the guest house too?”
Homesickness immediately surged through my veins, but I shook my head. “Nah. It’s just me, my mom, and two little sisters—no dad in the picture—and they can’t come.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to assume…” June stuttered.
Like it always did, my gut twisted to the point of pain when someone asked about my family situation. I rubbed the back of my neck like I was casually shrugging off the comment. “No problem, Junebug,” I said, pasting on my well-practiced smile. Then added, “Mom can’t come here with me. Her work is back home, and she couldn’t get leave. Plus, my little sisters are at school, and I didn’t want to uproot them. I’m here alone. I speak to them every day, several times a day, and they’ll visit some on the weekends while I’m here.” I shrugged, hoping I sounded as cool about it as I wanted to present. I’d gotten real good at hiding my feelings throughout the years.
I understood that my family couldn’t be here with me, I did. My mom was a single parent, had a low-income job, and had my two little sisters to take care of. She was already completely in debt due to my chemotherapy and treatments over the past few months. A good chunk of this new treatment was paid for by the drug company alongside of my insurance, taking away some of the financial burden from my mom. It was too much of an opportunity to miss out on.
Not having them here felt like a stab in my chest, yet I had no choice but to cope with it. It wasn’t like my wayward dad was coming back into the picture to help. Nah, that would be far too much to expect of him.
I took a quiet, deep breath, so June didn’t notice my inner turmoil. I was seventeen. I could do this alone. Ihadto. Plus, I had my fellow patients to lean on, and they were all pretty cool. It all didn’t seem so bad now that I was here.
I can do this…
June’s silence made me turn my attention to her. She clearly felt the heaviness of my gaze as she met my eyes. “I’m so sorry they couldn’t come.” She sounded heartbroken for me. My chest squeezed at that. I wasn’t used to people caring for me outside ofmy little family. It was…nice. Unfamiliar but nice all the same. I didn’t really know how to process that.
“It’s okay,” I said nonchalantly. “I intend to go back to them fully healed and ready to live the rest of my life in perfect health.” I meant every word of it.
June’s responding smile was blinding. “I believe you will,” she said. I smiled back as we rounded the corner to her suite. “Ah, thank you!” she said, humor in her soft voice. “I would never have found my way here. I’d have been calling out an SOS.” We stopped at her door. She faced me. “You’ve really sussed this place out in the couple of days you’ve been here, huh?”
“Eh, not really.” I dramatically stepped backwards a few steps until I stood before the next suite’s door. “This is me,” I said, tapping on the door’s nameplate. “Stag.”
“You’re room’s next door to mine?” June said, kind of breathless.
“Looks that way.”
“Ah, there you are!” A man’s voice came from behind June right before he came into view. He was middle-aged and looked kind of like June. Her dad, I assumed. He was followed by who had to be June’s mom. Neenee brought up the rear.
“Jesse,” Neenee said, spotting me by my door. “I see you’ve met June.”
I looked to June and winked. “I have.”
She blushed.
“I’m Greg Scott, June’s dad,” the man said, and I shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Jesse Taylor.”
Mr. Scott looked to my baseball cap for a few moments, then said, “Jesse Taylor who is set to join the Longhorns next year? Jesse Taylor, offensive player of the year, QB?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and just like happened with most people I met, his gaze turned sympathetic. I tossed the ball between my hands faster—it was part of me at this point, and it helped calm me. “Just got to kick this cancer’s butt first,” I said, trying to keep things light. Ineededto keep things positive. I couldn’t entertain anything but a full recovery here at the ranch, so I was making no room for the alternative. I had dreams to fulfill and goals to achieve, and I only had a small window for that to happen.
“You managed to still play football sick?” June asked, shocked, and that twist was back in my gut. The truth was, we hadn’tknown.
“We didn’t pick up on the signs, Jesse. I’m so sorry. We thought they were injury related, notthis,” the team doc said, his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know how you managed to push through each game, son, through practice. You’re nothing if not tenacious. If anyone can beat this, it’s you.”
